


In Battle We Break

by LiveOakWithMoss



Series: Silmarillion Prompts [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Second Kinslaying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 10:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2021169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/pseuds/LiveOakWithMoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt 1: Celegorm, witnessing Curufin's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Battle We Break

Curufin had always been pure, deadly grace when he fought. 

Celegorm knew his fighting form as intimately as he knew his brother’s face; how many long years had they faced each other on the practice fields? How often had he read his brother’s movements in steel, watching the fierce, lethal focus of battle flicker across his features? They knew each other so well that their sparring matches became the things of legend and spectacle – Celegorm’s brutal joy against Curufin’s merciless dance.

Celegorm would win about five times out of ten. (If he was honest with himself, it was more like four times out of ten.) 

But in battle, Curufin at his side, he had always felt invincible, lit with the pleasure of the fight and the surety of his brother at his right hand. 

 _We cannot be vanquished_ , he would think, alive and elated.  _Together, we are invincible_.  _Indestructible._  

Somewhere along the line, he realized, he should have learned the folly of hubris.

 

Curufin was always graceful in battle. 

And so, when he fell, the clumsiness of it, as abrupt as a puppet whose strings were cut, the wrongness of it jarred Celegorm from the song and flow of the fight. 

He brought his sword down savagely through the skull of the elf before him, and whirled, bellowing, “ _No!_  Curvo!” 

He could hear the thunder of Maedhros’ voice, somewhere in the distance, and see, far across the halls, the glint of Maglor’s twin blades. It had been some time since he’d seen Caranthir, but surely… 

All that mattered, just now, was that there was no one coming to Curufin’s aid but himself. 

But – and his heart was beating harder now, his breath coming in sharp gasps – what aid was there to give, now?

Curufin’s harsh, lovely face was caught in an expression of surprise as the light flickered and died behind his grey eyes, the life rushing as quickly from him as the blood from the great, gaping red grin in his throat. 

Celegorm let out a wild roar, feeling his throat tear with the force of it. 

 _Was this how Maedhros felt when Turgon sent the bloody banners? Was this agony that kept him from sleep, fleeing his nightmares, an automaton of flame and steel? No wonder their eldest brother walked like a dead thing, eyes like stone._  

Dior was before him now, throat bare – Dior was before him, and  _between him and his brother._

 _Was this how Amrod had felt at Losgar, his grief so much greater even than the rest of theirs, his other half hewn from him? No wonder he’d turned mute and savage._

_But_ , thought Celegorm _, here was the difference – he_ could reach his brother’s side _._  

Only one thing stood between them. 

 

It was but the work of a moment. 

The King of Doriath fell, Celegorm’s sword slicing so deeply into his throat that it nearly severed his head. The hot blood drenched his hands like a benediction, like a baptism. 

Celegorm spared not a glance for the dying elf before him, but surged forward, intent on one thing only. 

 _Curvo._

His brother was still now, a fallen form in scarlet and gold – what was the blood, and what was their banner? Stars, fallen on a bloody plain… 

So intent was Celegorm to close the distance between them that he didn’t notice the sword, still held in the dead king’s hand, until it had slid to the hilt in his breast. 

He looked down, wordlessly, and then sank to his knees. 

 _Oh_.

He reached, fingers sliding in blood and gore, seeking Curufin’s hand. He stretched until the sword slid from Dior’s lifeless hands and he slumped forward over the hilt, run through and through by the king’s blade, his hand still seeking his brother’s. 

He never found it. 

He died with his eyes open, fixed on his brother’s face. 

**Author's Note:**

> 0\. This story has been translated into Russian and can be found [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/3241685).


End file.
